Basil
by Ophium
Summary: Dean's bed ridden in the hospital, but this time he wasn't fortunate enough to land on a private room. Complete


Many thanks to Jackfan2 for the beta-work. All remaining mistakes are mine :)

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"Have I told you about my Basil?"

He had. In fact, he had told him all about bright Basil, future rock star, puppy lover and garlic hater, who was nine and had a horse named Stewart, which the old man thought was dumb because he'd seen the horse and there was no dick, which made it a mare, so it made no sense to call it 'Stewart'.

Twelve times already had Dean heard all about the dick-less horse that was actually a mare.

That day alone.

"His band's name is called 'Pineapple Pimps'. Who would've known a nine year old would even know what a 'pimp' is, right?"

And from then on, the old guy in bed five, smack across from Dean -and currently his roommate- would go on to recite every single song that his precocious Basil and his band had ever written. All five of them.

_'I gotta a marble in my pocket', 'Me, my Playstation and my friends', 'Lara Croft rules', 'Peanutbutter and Jelly'_ and, of course, the smashing hit, _'My dog peed on my bed'._

"There's a story behind that one, you know? Dog didn't pee anything, but there was no way that Basil was ever gonna confess to that..."

By the time the old man got to the lyrics, Dean was already, most of the times, pressing the morphine button like crazy.

The people who came to see the old man weren't any better. His eighty-year-old wife and her younger sister, a spiffy seventy-two years youngster, talked their elbows out. Usually taking extra care to include Dean.

In every single one of their talks.

Honest to God, they usually spent more time around Dean's bed than with the old man.

"Oh, your poor thing. Does it hurt?" One would ask, quickly followed by a pat in Dean's leg.

Dean's pin-ridden leg.

The one he'd broken in three places falling down a flight of stairs. After a poltergeist pushed him.

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable with an extra pillow? I'm gonna get you an extra pillow." Quickly followed by so much fluffing of Dean's pillows that he could almost hear ducks quaking.

"I brought peach cobbler. Do you want some, honey?" Quickly followed by waving the droopy thing in front of Dean's nose.

He hated peach.

But mostly, Dean hated the fact that he was stuck there until the metal pins in his broken leg came off. And he hated Sam, who refused to bust him out until then.

"Handsome lad like you... I bet you have a sweetheart coming here every day, right? She the one who keeps bringing you all of those pies? That's some girl you got there."

"Oh! You know, I have a niece, right about your age... I think you two would get along really well."

"Stop trying to fix the boy with a date. Can't you see he's in pain by the way he's pressing that button? Besides, your niece has buckteeth... she would end up biting half the poor lad's face off."

"Well, she's your niece too!"

The nurses had eventually taken the morphine button away from Dean. For some reason, they had gotten the idea that Dean was abusing the stuff.

Sam came to see him every day, around dinnertime. "Brought you chocolate pie today... how're you feeling?"

Dean's growl was usually a good sign, or so Sam thought. Silent Dean was in-pain Dean. The growl just meant that he was pissed and utterly bored. In that room, it meant he was planning murder in his sleep. Probably Sam's.

"Oh, you have visitors. Have you told him about my Basil? His band's called the 'Pineapple Pimps', you know? Who would've known a nine year old would even know what a 'pimp' is, right?"

Dean was secretly vindicated by the fact that that was the third time Sam was told _all_ about Basil's band.

The old man died the night before Dean was discharged. Lights came on, people rushed in with loads of equipment and the curtains were pulled around the old man's bed with an ominous whirl. Didn't stopped Dean from knowing something bad was going on.

The next morning, armed with a pair of crutches and some ridiculous shorts that Sam had bought for him –since Dean refused to waste his good jeans by cutting holes in them for the three pins that wouldn't come out for another month yet- he passed the two old ladies on his way out.

Despite the annoying factor, he couldn't help but extend his sympathies for their loss and ask how Basil was taking his grandfather's passing.

The two women looked so strangely at Dean that he almost patted his face, wondering if there was something nasty hanging from his nose or if he had something stuck between his teeth.

"What?" Dean finally asked.

"Who told you about Basil, honey?"

Dean fumbled a little. He had no idea what the old man's name was, and he figured it was rude to say 'the guy in bed five'. He had never really bothered to ask the old man's name and, sure as he was that the old man had probably introduced himself a thousand times, Dean had been too drugged or simply too bored to care to memorize it. Deflection, Dean decided, was the best strategy. "Is there something wrong with the kid?"

"The _kid_ was older than you when he died last year. Frank never really managed to cope with the loss. Luckily for him, the Alzheimer's took away the memory of his death."

"Frank died happy. To him, his son was never gone. Always stayed a little boy, riding on his horse."

"Mare," Dean found himself correcting. Frank would've appreciated that.


End file.
